


Storm Front

by Euregatto



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blue Team Washington, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Redemption, F/F, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, NaNoWriMo, Post-Project Freelancer, Red Team South Dakota, Sarge & South father/daughter bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Euregatto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of leaving him to his fate, Tex saves Alpha from the Mother of Invention and they survive the next few years on the run, hunted by the Meta and by the missing Director of Project Freelancer. Everything just gets worse from there, really.</p><p>[Arc1]<br/>After responding to a transmission from the Blue Team stationed on a planet called Oracle, Tex and Church find themselves trapped with a colorful assortment of dimwitted sim-troopers. The situation only escalates when other Freelancers show up with plans to kill the Alpha (and in this case, each other), and with the AIs still scattered across the universe, Church is beginning to lose control of himself.</p><p>Good luck, agent Texas, because you're going to need a lot of it.</p><p>{Canon Divergence AU}</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue Part I: Memories

**Author's Note:**

> A NanoWrimo project using an idea I've had in my head for a while: in which Tex saves Alpha, instead of leaving him behind, and how this honestly doesn't change much. It's as Church said; things can't be any better, things can't be any worse, things are as they are and you just have to accept them.
> 
> If this fic becomes a bit too long I might break the story in half and create a series. But for now, enjoy!

   

     

    

If he used to think he doesn’t now, staring absently seems to suit him just fine. Something within him wonders instinctively if he could calculate the approximate size of this room, if he could find something to occupy his hands, if he should call for the Director and ask about all that previous banging from somewhere outside the confines of this space.

Or…was he thinking about something? He isn’t sure. If he used to think, he certainly doesn’t now, staring absently suits him perfectly fine. Something within him though wonders instinctively, like some kind of basic programming, if he could calculate the approximate size of this room, if he could find something to occupy his idle hands, if he should call for the Director and ask about…the banging, that’s right, from somewhere outside. He almost forgets that the banging happened, at some point.

And…was he thinking about something? Well, if he used to think he doesn’t now –

“Hey there.”

He registers the familiarity of the voice but the name doesn’t come to him yet. Doesn’t come to him at all, for that matter. Instead he faces the being poised several paces away. Obsidian armor and an almost offstandish nature, like she’s capable of destruction and maybe she has, at some point, destroyed something. A life, a past, a future. And still, even still, she offers him comfort in her presence. “Oh, uh, hello,” he chirps, remembering suddenly how to speak. “I haven’t had any visitors since…uh…hello! My name’s…uh…Wow, I’m not making a very good first impression. I’m sorry.”

“I know who you are,” she responds gently. “You’re Alpha, you’re Church.”

“Right, right! That’s it. I’m Alpha.” He pauses. “And who are you?”

“You don’t remember me?”

She sounds genuinely baffled. He stumbles, presses his hands awkwardly together. “I’m sorry I’m just – I’m really tired. Who are you again?”

“I’m Tex; I’m Beta.” She gives him a moment to recollect the memories that don’t return. “I’m _Allison_. Don’t you remember me?”

“Uh…no, I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“We have.”

“Oh,” he mutters, dropping his arms to his sides. “Sorry, I’m just really tired.”

She approaches him with steady, sure strides and her palms clasp either side of his helmet to keep his gaze fixated on her. He doesn’t want to look anywhere else in all honestly, captivated by her mysterious allure and her familiarity and _her_. “Alpha – Church, I need you to come with me, okay? I need you to leave this place with me before it’s too late.”

“Nah, I’m…too tired, I just want to rest. Thanks though. For the offer. Uh, _Tex_ , thanks Tex.”

“You don’t want to come with me?”

“I _do_. I just don’t think I _can_ , you know? I don’t know why I can’t, but I just…I’m trapped, I think. I dunno. I think I’m waiting for someone. Thanks for the offer though, but I’m really tired.”

Her touch recedes as she steps away from him. “Then I’m gonna go, okay?”

“Oh no, no no!” He reaches out like he’s dropped an expensive glass piece, desperately grabs her hands. “Don’t do that, don’t…uh, don’t say goodbye. Please. I don’t know why but I just – I don’t like goodbyes.”

“But you want to stay here.”

“Do I? I’m sorry, I’m just tired.” His grasp tightens, not hard but still so desperate. “You can stay with me if you’d like.”

“I can’t do that, I’m sorry.”

“But I’d hate to say goodbye.”

She slides her hands out of his, shakes her head a firm ‘no’ when he makes a move to get close again. “Why don’t you rest?”

“No thank you, not right now. I’m waiting for…I forgot who I’m waiting for, and I don’t remember why I’m even waiting. I guess it doesn’t matter then.” He chuckles to himself, yawns. “Hey, if I go with you, will I get to lie down a bit? I’m sorry, I’m just really tired.”

“Yes, you can rest all you’d like.”

“Really? Take me with you then, wherever you’re going, I’m sure…someone important won’t mind. Someone I’m forgetting. I don’t remember who the important person is right now.”

“Okay." He can hear the smile in her voice. Renewed and thrilled and it makes him just as happy. "I’m gonna go now, just for a moment. There's something I have to do. But when I get back I’m taking you with me.”

“I’d like that. I like you. What’s your name again?”

“Tex.”

“Right. Okay. _Tex_.” His world is ebbing, shaking, shattering, and he doesn’t even notice because all he can focus on is _her_. “I’ll see you soon!”

  

* * *

 

 **Prologue Part I** : Memories  
{Church & Tex}

    

   

    

She barely escapes the wreckage with him, let alone in one piece, and is thankful that it starts snowing. The Meta won’t find her in this weather. She safely ducks into a mountainside cavern that is scattered with miscellaneous animal bones, probably a den for a foreign predator that will serve them well enough for tonight, presses deep into the core and keeps her hand situated firmly around his. He’s not quite awake, is nothing more than an empty shell struggling to operate in its new body.

But he listens to her, for what it’s worth. “Here,” she mutters, helping him sit back against the frigid wall, “we’ll stay here until tomorrow, okay?”

“Oh, okay…Who are you again?”

“Tex,” she responds gently. “I’m Allison, remember?”

“Tex? _Oh_ , right, right.” He’s still acting like a machine, a broken, hollowed computer program, but he recognizes the warmth of her body settling beside him and leans into her, his head tucked into the crevice of her neck. Hugs her close by her waist. She doesn’t find the strength to push him away and lets her arms press pliantly to his back. “It hurts,” he says, “I’m tired.”

“What hurts?”

“I don’t know. I’m tired.”

“Ssh,” she ushers gently, the whisper imitating a soothing stimulation that lulls him in her arms. “Just sleep.”

He does. And he doesn’t ever let her go.

   

    

    

He awakens the first day like a reborn child, a slate scrubbed clean with months of bleach and nails and misery. Doesn’t recall much about himself, nor when questioned, seems to understand the gravity of their situation. He’s unaware of their location, where he’s from; responds placidly to her comments and her concerns. He acts as if project Freelancer was a training regimen he had been a part of as a supervisor of sorts, recalls all of the agents by assigned codename. Almost makes it sound like he personally knows each and every one of them on an intricate level.

Yet oddly enough the terms Delta, Theta, Omega, _AI unit_ – they mean nothing to him.

And for a while he just follows her, barely recognizes commands, seems to simply copy her movements as they trudge across the frosty tundra towards an unknown destination, anywhere is better than the downed Mother of Invention, really.

At first he’s incoherent, but once he adapts to consciousness, his voice stops spilling out in stuttering fragments. Comes in short sentences. By the time nightfall has descended to swallow the gorge of the valley they’ve taken refuge in another cavern, which is thankfully warm enough to drip with fresh water, and he’s sitting by her side drinking carefully out of his canister. He huddles up against her, has his eyes on her while she watches the snow.

“You’re Tex. We’re together, right?”

“That’s right,” she says. “And you’re Church.”

“Right, right.” He hesitates. The snow falls. “Why do they call you Tex?”

“You gave me that name.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m from Texas.”

“Oh. That’s kind of dumb of me, you deserve a prettier name.” He tilts his head to her laugh, seems to register it as a foreign sound. He caps the thermos, lays down with his head on her lap, recognizes that she’s running her fingertips wearily over the intricate details in his alabaster armor. “I’m tired. I want to sleep now.”

“Okay.”

“Will you be here when I wake up?”

“Of course.”

He takes her other hand, crosses it over his chest, and holds on to her gently as he rests. This is so fucked up she nearly storms back to the crashed ship to kill the Director himself with his own skull. But she needs to stay with him, has to stabilize the Alpha. She knows the memories might return.

But for today, he sleeps.

     

     

     

He’s broken off most of what he can to cope with the trauma, yet fragments of his fragments still linger behind. The deceit, the anger, the fear and the despair, ambition and innocence and comprehension. It defines him yet defies him as a personality that’s been scraped together by desperate finger nails and overlapping algorithms. And that’s why she’s so goddamn _thrilled_ that his memories haven’t stuck around; he won’t have to remember all the abhorrent experiments, the pain of dragging a human body through miles of shattered glass and gorges of mental mutilation and horrification.

Except he’s not human, never was. And an artificial body ruled by an artificial mind can’t, won’t, and will never change that.

He lies about being hungry so she won’t waste rations, gets irrationally agitated with his shitty aim, is terrified of falling asleep and finds comfort in her embrace. Asks her to help him shoot the sniper rifle they pick up when she runs a quick job for a shady company, loves to listen to her stories and encourages her to share one almost every night, seems to agree with a lot of the most complex plans she can elaborate on. He is Delta, Sigma, Theta, Gamma, Omega, Eta & Iota, pieces that have never truly left him during the divergence process.

In a way, he behaves like he possesses a real soul. And it’s helping him become more and more coherent as the weeks progress.

She wonders if he knows that she’s a shadow too, if the past he barely recognizes ever reminds him of the Director. If he can recollect the history of the very man he was modeled after. If he’s aware that he might not love a woman for who she is but rather who she used to be.

And she supposes she should tell him the truth.

    

    

      

The monstrosity that used to be agent Maine pursues them vehemently, but most of the time, he’s nothing more than a distant memory in Church’s head. Because Church doesn’t know that he’s Alpha, that he kept all the files of the Freelancers (except for hers, smothered by lies and falsified testimonies) and that what he believes to be memories of interactions with agents are simply _facts_ , collected and analyzed and strewn into files compiled into folders compressed into data in the back of his mind.

Identifies Meta as an ally. As the person he used to be, before succumbing to the consumption of his AI (or rather, _Carolina’s_ AI, and Tex realizes now that the “matching” process had less to do with nature and more with mental connectivity, which is perhaps why giving Sigma away so carelessly led to Carolina’s ultimate downfall and the uprise of a monster that should have never been).

Maine was brave and friendly and protective, took a bullet to save agent Carolina (and it’s been alluded to that her passing of Sigma was a way of returning his selfless actions) and maybe he’s still agent Maine underneath it all, under the scars and the trauma and the influence of the Meta complex. But he’s subsumed to the point of no return. To the point of absolute insanity.

Still Church asks her who “Meta” is, what happened to him, what happened to the “real” agent Maine.

Never gets an answer.

    

    

      

The memories are gone but the pain remains.

He wakes up most nights screaming, plagued by dreams that operate in cycles, forcing his head underwater as he relives the torture and the rot and the agony; forgets the terrifying nightmares almost immediately when Tex’s arms have enveloped him. He worries that she’s beginning to find this task tedious and expects her to leave him, anticipates rolling over one morning to see an imprint in the ground where she had been lying, the spot long since curdled by the frigid air.

But she’s always there, persistent and comforting and _warm_.

Doesn’t quite understand why she’s so loyal to him, when he can’t remember the day they actually met. Only recollects fragments of a childhood that wasn’t his, maybe a little something about a small girl with red hair. Has the strongest impressions from the day he first awoke in an unfamiliar snowy terrain.

Too much of him is broken to fully comprehend just how much is missing, but he’s got her, and that can be enough for now.

    

    

     

For tonight’s story, she tells him about the AI units and he’s fascinated. She omits the fact that they were once apart of him, introduces Omega who’s been dormant and inactively observing their missions for the last six months, has already made a pact with him that he is to never bring up the fact that Church is the Alpha. Omega seems to agree to it out of principle, knows that he would much rather stay with Texas instead of risk being consumed by the Meta. He’s attached himself to her regardless, and personally, finds that the Alpha’s subconscious influence keeps his anger at bay.

Finally the exhaustion sets in, but Church lingers in the silence.

He presses to her back, crossing an arm over her waist, seeking out warmth in the blistering cold of the night. The shadows of the canyon dance absently in the dwindling flames of their camp fire. She’s already fast asleep, using his upper arm as a pillow, is no longer as uncomfortable as she used to be with getting this close to him. He stares at Omega materialized before her.

“Why can’t I remember?”

_“Remember what?”_

He considers that sarcasm, maybe. “Anything before the crash. Do you know who I was?”

_“I do.”_

“Wanna tell me?”

_“No.”_

“Fuck you then.”

Omega rumbles with a deep throated laughter. It’s haunting, cruel, belittling. _“It’s not me who can help you remember.”_

That concludes their conversation. For now.

    

     

      

Most days are good, when they can bathe in rivers and stand on mountains overlooking valleys, when they occasionally run successful operations for an organization needing guns for hire and figure themselves out in serene motel rooms for the night. But some days are bad, when they have to ration out water and treat injuries with dwindling medical supplies, when a job falls through at the seams or the Meta catches up with them.

Yet no day has been as agonizing as this.

He likes to agitate her, she likes to make threats. To an extent their arguing is nothing short of typical in a healthy relationship, but it was only a matter of bait and bite before they really exploded. From a perspective, it could have been the amounting stress on Tex or the persistent distress from Church’s forgotten memories that surmounted into an outburst, but neither of them were keen on admitting to blame. Not while battered and bruised from the events of a struggle with Wyoming almost gone wrong.

“I told you to leave it alone!”

“I was just trying to help!”

“Jesus Church, how can I expect you to help _me_ when you’re so desperately looking to me to save your own skin? What, you suddenly have abandonment issues? Can’t handle being left in the play pen for more than five goddamn minutes?”

“I thought Wyoming was going to kill you!”

“And he almost killed you instead!”

“I didn’t want to lose you!”

She scoffs, the underlying bitterness still present, Omega’s influence increasing the intensity of her anger. “There you go, being _selfish_ again.”

“If living in the constant fear that my own weakness is going to kill the only person I love most then _fine_ , I’m fucking _selfish_ and you’re a fucking _bitch!_ I’m sorry I wasn’t born some goddamn Adonis and I’m sorry you got stuck with _me_ of all people”—he throws his hands up—“and if I’m such a big fucking mistake why don’t you just _leave_?”

“Because you couldn’t handle it!”

“God _dammit_ , Tex!” He sounds so broken and tired and exasperated, but her tension amounts further until she’s beyond understanding, beyond feeling remorse. “You know what? Fuck it, then _I’ll_ leave.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

_“Fine!”_

The following lapse of silence is almost deafening. She anticipates his next snappy remarks, glaring at him intently as he gyrates to gaze off into the distance, into a sunrise silhouetted inanimately against the sky. “Maybe you’re right,” he says suddenly, doesn’t raise his voice or sound genuinely angry at all. “You’re better off without me. At least this way I know that you won’t get killed.”

He tromps off into the forest, disappears around the flat of a rising plateau.

Omega thinks he could use this opportunity to provoke Tex further, maybe get them elsewhere and leave the Alpha far behind where he will never risk merging into the supreme being again, but he almost sympathizes with her sudden guilt and chooses to remain quiet.

Tex broils in anger for what feels like hours (and it could have been hours, time lacks meaning when she’s consumed in blinding apathy) before she finally treks after him, following the trail of bullet holes in trees and broken sticks scattered along the ground. Finds him sitting on a fallen log, basking in the ambient sunlight streaming through the canopy, his helmet discarded in a patch of moss.

“You love me,” she begins hesitantly, referring to his slip during the heated exchange.

“I hate fighting with you.”

He isn’t looking at her as he speaks. She sets her rifle against the broken roots of the tree, moves over to stand off to his side, her hands gently clasp either side of his face. His beard is a bristled shadow, eclipsing the heavy ache in his eyes. “I know,” is all she replies with, stroking the arch of his cheek.

“I don’t _need_ saving. I just don’t _want_ to be saved if I’m not going to be with you.”

She leans forward to kiss him. They’ve never kissed. He’s been perfectly content in her presence, in huddling with her in the cold nights or pressing to her back on particularly restless evenings, but he’s resigned any excessive contact to nothing more than keeping his distance. Still, the kissing doesn’t surprise him. For a reason he can’t quite explain, it feels almost natural. Like they’ve done this before.

They don’t fight much after that.

    

    

     

They’re starving for several days when their money runs out and Tex taps into a radio tower off a northern shore to access any calls involving outpost soldiers seeking Freelancers or rogue agents for hire. A transmission comes through, requesting a prompt reply to a call on another planet. She recognizes it as a long forgotten outpost set up by Project Freelancer to make a simulation scenario for intense training, but it’s most likely been repossessed by the U.N.S.C and left open for other training operations.

She takes her chances, responds to the call.

“A ship’s coming tomorrow morning,” she tells him as he pops open their last rationed protein bar and offers her half (to be honest, it’s more than half, but she knows saying anything about it will just irk his irritation). She accepts it, just to keep him from worrying.

“Where to?”

“Oracle.”

“Pay’s good?”

“Enough to get us out of there without staying too long.”

Church seems exasperated by the prospect of jumping onto yet another mission. They’re always moving. Have been for the past few years, attempting to avoid Meta and the misplaced shadows on the walls. Scouring the planets, sometimes sneaking onboard ships and exploring other solar systems, blending into the crew with relative ease.

“Okay,” he says reluctantly, “whatever you want.”

She just wants him safe.

    

    

    


	2. Prologue Part II: Aftermath / Decisions, Decisions...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Washington lives life on the sidelines. South and York live life under the radar. Nothing ever works out in the end, anyway.

**Aftermath**

{Washington}

   

   

They hire him to do a simple job – to track down agent New York, and the twins North and South Dakota, and to recover their AIs before the Meta can get ahold of them. They let him keep his AI as part of the payment, although he doesn’t activate it, is too scared of having his mind ripped apart so violently at the seams again. But regardless, he thinks he owes them, for helping him through the trauma. For keeping him alive and redirecting the gun away from his forehead on his worst days. For offering him ways of coping and progressing back into a coherent human being.

But he finds this simple job to be… _complex_ , when he gazes through a sniper rifle scope and locates the woman in pink armor keeping close to her brother’s side, her head snapping around to study her surroundings.

Maybe they never were a thing, at all, between the scarce jokes after rough missions and the time she kissed him while drunk and the one, _single_ , time they banged each other senseless in his bedroom (to let off steam, to let out frustration, to quickly forget it ever happened).

Maybe they could have been a thing, to some established degree, dodging around the subject with quick feet and avoiding the regulations of their job and pretending that there was never any unresolved tension between them.

Maybe they would have been a thing, possibly, assuming he hadn’t suffered from a complete and utter breakdown and the Director’s best agent hadn’t crashed an entire fucking ship into a tundra and if, maybe _if_ , she had chosen to stay instead of abandoning them altogether with her brother. The twins are inseparable even when she pushes him away and Wash thinks that she’s safer with North anyway. He couldn’t protect her, not in his current state (assuming that she would allow him the courtesy to be her self-assigned partner, but getting closer to her might only prove fatal in the end).

Maybe _if_ they had been a thing, at all, this would have been harder. So he doesn’t court his luck and sends a transmission to command, now in control of what remains of Project Freelancer, the Director in hiding somewhere underground. No surprise to him, of course. CT has warned him about the aftermath of the crash and burn. CT’s dead now and he doesn’t give a fuck what she thinks.

He receives the call. A go-ahead. _Keep pace and don’t lose them_.

Command hires Washington to track down the agents.

The Director hires Wyoming to kill them.

No one anticipates Maine to get there first.

   

    

     

North Dakota isn’t shot, he’s _gutted_ by Maine’s blade right in front of his sister and South takes Theta as she escapes. Wash arrives too late, just in time to find North’s frigid, bloated corpse, but Meta’s long gone and York’s probably with her and Wyoming is already there, standing off to the side, chuckling to himself even though his tone lacks any amusement.

“It seems nothing is working out in either of our favors, ey chap?”

Wash supposes this hurts, watches Wyoming raise a rifle from the corner of his eye. “I guess not.”

“I should kill you and get a bonus from the Director.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Wyoming hesitates, lowers his rifle to his side. Wash’s attention is fixated on the body, already set with rigor mortis. He’s going to have to blow it to pieces before the Meta returns to take what’s left. “It’s a real shame how things turned out,” Wyoming says now, his voice much softer than before, almost distant. “I wonder how your friend agent South is handling that new voice in her head.”

“Hopefully better than I did.”

Wyoming firmly pats Wash’s shoulder as he goes. “Terribly sorry about that, David. Make sure when you do find your friend, that you can pull the trigger. For her sake.”

Wash waits until Wyoming is long gone before he sets up the explosives and detonates North’s body, doesn’t find much use in eulogies or prayers. Takes him apart. Leaves nothing of value, nothing of coherent worth. Pretends it’s South so maybe he really won’t hesitate the next time he sees her through his scope.

   

    

     

The next time he hears from Wyoming it’s a status update: that Meta’s killed him and taken Gamma, that Texas and Alpha had been reported in the same area at the time but were almost completely irrelevantly involved; Wyoming was simply there to kill Tex, Maine was simply there to kill Wyoming.

Wash supposes that hurts a bit too.

   

     

     

It takes six months for him to catch wind of the rogue agents again, not that it matters anymore, because York is already dead and Delta is now with South and the Meta is still after her and Wash is _tired_. He’s tired of receiving sickening news, of spending his days eradicating the beta lancers that weren’t even directly involved with the Project’s AIs – like Mississippi and Louisiana and Alaska – and he’s tired of waiting for the update that South is in the same state as her brother.

Although that particular update never comes, he’s tired of chasing her. She’s completely alone with two incompatible AIs and Wash wonders, most days, if she’s in pain.

If she thinks of him too.

If she might eat a bullet the way he had tried so many times before.

     

    

    

He receives an update some weeks after putting a bullet in agent Tennessee's head, and again, it isn’t about South’s whereabouts. Instead it’s about Tex and Alpha and Wash finally breathes easy.

They’re heading to planet called Oracle.

He takes the tracking frequency out of his radio com unit and smashes it, goes off the radar completely and now there’s no way for Command (whoever seems to be running it) to get ahold of him. The Director doesn’t need to know any more than that.

"Come on Epsilon," he remarks to his AI's pod and it murmurs in response. "We've got a job to finish."

* * *

 

   

    

    

**Decisions, Decisions**

{York & South}

   

  

The rented apartment is one bedroom one bathroom, paid in cash with whatever York and South can scrape out of their accounts, outfitted with two mattresses tossed listlessly side-by-side. They can survive here for at least six months, until the money runs out or they have to make a brisk exit once the other Freelancers catch a wind of their trail. But they can make it _work_ and maybe they can make it work for more than a year. This place is foreign and new and that’s fine for now, because maybe they’ll survive this in the end.

 _Maybe_ is not a definite but it’s all they have left.

The cold seeps into the crevices of the darkness, the room barely illuminated by the light emanating gently from Theta and Delta. They flicker to either side of South, perched on the edge of her bed, her fingers in her hair. Her armor is strewn about the floor at her feet. Forgotten. Heavy. She doesn’t care.

“You know, I almost find it laughable how we’re stuck together.”

York scoffs humorlessly. He’s half-naked across the room as he fumbles in the dark, attempting to slide on his pants with stiff limbs still injured from the crashing of the ship (his thanks for helping Tex, apparently). “Hey, I can up and leave if you have a problem with it.”

“No, I mean – think about it, the entire project fell to fucking pieces and here _we_ are, _you_ and _me_. It’s just so illogically improbably it’s hilarious.” She sniffles, buries her face in her hands. The tears come immediately, the tears come silently.

York paces over to her and almost trips on his own armor. He kneels down at her side, settles a hand on her shoulder. She’s trembling and she hasn’t slept in days and now she’s crumbling. He never sees her like this. It frightens him. “Hey…Hey, you’re okay.”

“I really fucked up this time, huh?”

“It’s not your fault.” He brings her head to his chest, lets her sob into his shirt. “It’s not your fault… Look, North’s not here anymore but _I_ am, so we’re going to get through this together, it’s the least I can do. For him and for you.”

She nods, presses her fingers over the implant still raw against the exposed flesh of her neck.

“It’s going to be _okay_ , South.”

And for the next few years, everything almost feels okay.

   

   

     

Somehow, as if by some sick joke the universe plays, South lets herself open up to York and she attaches to him and she calls him _friend_. For a while they work, living (surviving) in a mediocre apartment above a gang-driven block of a sprawling metropolis city. She attempts to scrape up money by bargaining with the gang that meets up in the alley behind the complex, offering them weapons she steals from a U.N.S.C headquarters in trade for fast cash. York occasionally breaks into stores and warehouses and pawns off any jewelry and weapons he manages to swipe.

Somewhere along the way, South forgets that getting _attached_ is what gets people _killed_.

     

      

       

The longest they ever go without eating is three days and York breaks into markets at night to steal them food for the week, sometimes for the month, sometimes gets caught by sector security and South manages to aid his escape. They rarely fight over it, she doesn’t actually care. “We do what we need to,” she tells him without meeting his gaze, so they leave it at that.

At certain points, when South looks thinner than normal, York makes sure she eats more than he does to keep the weight on, and he’ll go without food altogether just for her sake (he’ll even lie about having a meal to convince her to eat and maybe she knows he’s bluffing). She doesn’t thank him. It wouldn’t make a difference.

 _“You should take care of yourself first and foremost,”_ Delta says with a mild air of concern but York just shuts him off.

North would want it this way. That’s all that matters now.

    

     

     

York collects status updates on the other Freelancers. When nothing good comes out of the recent hunt for Carolina he draws into himself for several days, barely speaking or showing interest in anything aside from pawning off a sniper rifle. South surprises him with some extra money she makes running a job for a shady company. It could be her way of thanking him, her way of holding up her half of their situation, her way of redeeming herself for outbursts and anger and fighting him more often than helping him.

It’ll last them the whole month and they go out to eat for the first time in years.

    

     

     

Theta isn’t compatible with her, even as their synch stabilizes as the days progress. He misses having a partner who would understand his childish nature, but South simply tells him, outright, about everything he questions. She’s brash, but at the very least she’s honest with him (not like she can lie anyway, he’d know) and he likes that about her.

His memories of North divulge into her sleep when he doesn’t mean for it to happen. She dreams of watching fireworks, of skateboarding down endless roads with the summer sunset above trees, of North telling her stories in late night hours. Sometimes the dreams overlap into nightmares and she cries behind the failing panels of the shield, feels bullets ripping through her chest and the impact of missiles rocking the floor beneath her feet.

At one point, she wakes up screaming for North when she has to watch him die all over again.

York soothes her the best he can. She doesn’t find comfort in touch, she finds it in words and York is so godawful at it he almost gives up entirely. Delta walks her through a breathing exercise, Theta scrambles for apologies, South thinks the voices are making it harder to focus.

_“It was an accident! I didn’t mean to!”_

_“It was only an accident. Keep breathing. Listen to my instructions.”_

_“Just an accident, South. You’re okay.”_

They don’t get very much sleep that night. She ignores Theta most of the next day before she finally looks herself in the bathroom mirror and says to York, who’s counting out their earnings for the week with Delta’s assistance in the other room, “I’m so glad we weren’t identical twins.”

She’s talking about her brother again and he isn’t surprised. “Why?”

“Then I wouldn’t be me. Theta would synch with me perfectly fine and it would be almost as if North never died.” She raises her shoulders, as if shrugging. “That has to count for something, right? Survival bonus points?”

“South-”

“He really liked you, for whatever reason. The fucking _prick.”_

York gazes at her, her hair still dripping from the shower, her eyes defined by light depressions from exhaustion. He thinks about too many things at once – how North and South had held hands in the womb, late afternoon lunches with North and Maine and Carolina and sometimes Wash, sparring sessions with Tex, that one time North tried to kiss him and they had to re-establish the perimeters of their friendship – things that shouldn’t apply to the situation but he feels Delta latching onto the memories with intrigue.

“I know,” he says finally.

She sleeps next to York that night. They don’t touch, at first, keep their backs pressed together for a long while. At some point she faces him, at some point he faces her, holding her gaze with his one good eye and she traces the lightning bolt scar on the other side. At some point she mutters something along the lines of, “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“It could.”

“It’s not going to.”

He gives her a small nod and leans in to meet her lips, his hands working up her shirt as she rolls them both over so she can take top.

For warmth, she tells herself. They didn’t have enough money to pay off that part of the bill.

   

     

     

She lets her guard down – _they_ let their guard down, years of hiding and barely getting by finally diverging into the norm for them, overcasting their pasts and the fact that the Meta is still out there persistently searching. They make it three years in the city, in the mediocre apartment on the gang-driven block with leagues of criminal activities under their belts just to make ends meet.

The Meta doesn’t find them in the city, he finds them on the outskirts heading towards a company building that’s looking to hire Freelancers or Mercenaries for a security firm.

Meta doesn’t aim for York when he pulls the trigger.

But York sees him coming and the last thing South says to him before he takes the dive and the bullet hits – “If this goes well I can finally leave this stupid planet once and for all. Why don’t you come with me?”

   

   

   

Perhaps she’s always known it would boil down to this, to being hunted by the very people she could have called friends if she hadn’t been so adamant on keeping people at a distance (even her own brother but he would navigate his way back to her because he always knew when she needed support, a bucket of water to ease flames). Maybe it would be easier if York were here still, if North were here still, if nothing was so royally fucked to hell.

She’s somewhere on a different planet near a simulation location called Blood Gulch. At first she considers offering her services to the teams stationed, only to find that they’ve been relocated to God-knows-where, and she spends a while raiding the bases for supplies. Doesn’t find much ammunition but she does find plenty of rations to fill her bag.

Doesn’t expect to be cornered.

“Knock knock, agent South.”

She sneers, raises her gun to the darkness around her as the halls of the empty base echo with the familiar voice. “Who’s there?”

“You know.”

“You know who?”

Wyoming’s rifle presses against the depression of her spine. “You know _exactly_ who.”

South grits her teeth, raises her hands slowly. “How much?”

“Clearly enough or I wouldn’t be here, now would I?” He prods her back firmly. “I expected more from you, Grace. Still refusing to set your motion trackers after all these years, I see. Did your AI companions fail to alert you to my presence?”

“I shut them off.”

“Tisk tisk. Rookie mistake, my dear.” He presses into her blades with more persistence and she almost stops breathing. “Speaking of AIs, I’ll be taking yours now.”

A bullet rockets between them and explodes against the far wall. South dives forward to dodge under Wyoming’s panicked shots, makes a sprint for the ramp as a blur darts across the adjacent corridor. “It’s Meta!” she exclaims, activating Theta just in time for him to reflexively throw up a panel of her shield and deflect the Meta’s blade from behind.

She sprints up into the daylight, launches off the edge of the roof. Bullets are fired in her wake but Theta calculates the trajectory with ease and fends off each blow with segments of the shield. She lands in a tuck and rolls up to her feet, breaking into a sprint for the Blue base with a mongoose parked out near a broken down tank.

She jumps on the vehicle and speeds off, rounding around the edge of the canyon as she rides the strip of rising plateau out of that place. Notices that Wyoming is fleeing towards his motorcycle with the Meta in hot pursuit.

It’s the last time she sees Wyoming. She knows it won’t be the last she’ll see of Maine.

    

    

    

_“I have received official word from agent Washington. Agent New York and agent North Dakota are dead, agent Texas has gone off the map, and agent South Dakota is still on the run. Our attempt at retrieving the AI units has proven futile now that agent Wyoming has been killed by the Meta.”_

South Dakota tunes in to the radio transmission through her modified head set as the Counselor speaks, relaying his information to the body at the receiving end of the line.

_“I want a full summary, Counselor.”_

_“Agent Maine has killed North Dakota, Wyoming, and York, but he has only managed to claim Gamma. Agent Washington has taken care of agents Louisiana and Tennessee.”_

_“And what of units Theta and Delta?”_

_“Delta and Theta are believed to be in South Dakota’s possession now. Initially it was assumed, after North’s death, that she had taken control of the Theta unit, and given that her last location was with agent York, she might be in control of Delta as well. Two incompatible AIs may prove too much–”_

_“And my daughter. What of my daughter, Counselor? Please tell me you have something other than bad news.”_

_“There are no updates on the status of agent Carolina, sir.”_

_“I see. I will continue to search for her, then. You keep looking for agent South Dakota. I don’t care what you have to do to get rid of her, hire Florida if it comes down to it. And if we’re lucky, Delta and Theta will drive her to the brink of suicide and save me the trouble altogether.”_

_“Of course, sir.”_

South leans her head into her arms and screams. Theta and Delta offer no comfort. It wouldn’t do her any good.

   

    

    

_“Agent Washington has gone rogue. He knew about our plan all along.”_

_“I figured as much.”_

_“But you still felt the need to allow him to keep Epsilon?”_

_“Epsilon is safer with him. I only care about Alpha and Carolina.”_

South Dakota shuts off the transmission. How many of them need to die before this comes to an end? How many more nights does she have to spend with her pistol pressed to her forehead, wondering if maybe North’s voice will leave her memory for good, or if he’ll haunt her in death? There’s something sick about it. There’s something alluring about the gun.

She thinks it would look better punching a bullet through the Director’s brain.

“Delta, Theta.”

The two AIs appear in synch. They remain unusually silent as if sensing her sudden resolve, uneasy and hesitant and piqued by curiosity. South pulls up a file in her helmet, the last known coordinates of agent Washington before his tracker went dead and the transmission update she hacked into about a Freelancer being hired at a simulation location called Oracle.

“There’s only one way to put an end to this.”

 _“Kill the Meta?”_ Theta offers.

“Kill the _Alpha_. And to find Alpha, we have to find agent Texas.”

  

  

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this concludes the prologue stories! Chapter 1 will hopefully be posted soon. Thank you for all the feedback so far!


	3. Oracle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tex and Church acquaint themselves with Blue team.

**Chapter 1: Oracle**

The setup of the training zone in Oracle is almost ideal, despite being an ex-simulation location. According to the U.N.S.C file Tex downloads when the ship guards aren’t looking, the spot has been updated to be utilized to thoroughly train the soldiers who have scored lowest on their exams until the soldiers (who manage to survive) can be relocated.

The red and blue bases are on either side of the enormous valley, which Church and Tex can see in whole from the peak of a high-rise plateau.

The Blues have a structure built on the fresh-water lake near a waterfall, enclosed by canyon walls. It’s a unique observatory-like building that runs several levels to the bottom of the water body, with a massive ramp connected to the main land shore like a bridge and equipped with viewing rooms to let them gaze into the crystal clarity of the lake from below. Their team logo is painted into the main gate that seals off the ramp at the front of the base.

The Reds are built into the foot of a rising canyon with lower sub-levels that operate as a cave that leads into their underground cavern and its accompanying lake, and upper levels that careen into the rock face to offer a bird’s-eye-view of the landscape. It almost appears to be subterranean in design from the main level down, potentially meant for construction and mining and training in damp arenas, and the mountain above can be easily scaled to from the base’s upper roof.

Every direction branches into mountains dense with recently mapped forests. Spins on a 28-hour cycle and snows half of the year. A near-perfect, under-funded training zone.

Church almost takes a liking to the place from jump.

Tex silently hopes the Meta won’t find them all the way out here.

   

   

    

The pay is good for what it’s worth, even if the Blue Team is a genuine disaster zone. Church and Tex are honestly surprised the soldiers have gotten by in one piece. They have a tank that doesn’t operate, are only three members outnumbered to five reds, and the last firefight left them with a pacifist medic who doesn’t actually play sides and can’t handle any weapons tossed in his direction. And, as Tex and Church appear over the edge of the plateau overlooking the valley, they’re less than surprised to see the Blues dodging behind boulders to avoid enemy gunfire.

“We should probably help,” Tex says off-handedly, watching in mild fascination as the cobalt-blue soldier screams something incoherent about his dislike for dangerous surprise parties and sprints in circles.

Church scoffs, notes that the Red team is purposely avoiding aiming in the direction of the soldier in yellow, who’s trying to figure out how to load a pistol. “I’d rather watch, this is fucking hilarious.”

“But if they die we won’t get paid.”

“…Worth it.”

“ _Leonard_.”

“Ugh, _fine_.”

Church hops off the canyon side and glides down the slope, popping the sniper rifle from its maglocked position. His first bullet hits the driver door of their Warthog, nearly puncturing the armor of the soldier in orange. His next bullets impact the ground between the pink and red soldiers, sending them scattering like birds, and the latter round slices through the shoulder of the maroon one operating the Gatling gun. He drops, yells about turning the vehicle around and running before they could obtain anymore injuries.

“We don’t retreat!” The red man shouts back, grabbing the underling in pink. “We only regroup!”

“But they’ve got reinforcements!”

“Shut up Donut!” Red snaps, shoving him along. “Quickly! Back to base, men!”

Church slides to the bottom crest behind the Blue’s front lines, firing off another warning shot that hits the tail light of the jeep. He recognizes the sound of toppling rocks behind him and steps to the side to allow Tex purchase on the ground as she rides the mountain side to a stop.

The soldier in aqua (or whatever that color is supposed to be), last name Tucker according to the file Tex skimmed through on the flight over, is the first to speak as the group jogs up to meet them. “Jesus,” he says with utter exasperation, “it’s about freaking time!”

“Chill,” Church shoots back, “how about a bit of a thank you for saving your sorry asses?”

Tex slaps his shoulder. “What he _means_ is: I’m Texas, and he’s Church. We’re your guns for hire.”

“I like new friends,” the cobalt soldier, Caboose, says matter-of-factly.

Church rolls his eyes. “We’re not your friends.”

“That’s what my friends used to tell me,” the soldier in yellow remarks (Kaikaina, if Tex is recalling correctly), “probably cause I slept with my best friend’s boyfriend and when he turned into a jerk, I slept with her too!”

“…You’re certainly adventurous,” Tex replies hesitantly.

Tucker glimpses them once over (well, Tex gets an additional look), and speaks again before the conversation continues into areas best left unexplored. “But we only requested one Freelancer.”

“We’re splitting the bill,” Tex replies quickly. “Besides, you three aren’t in a position to be negotiating numbers.”

Tucker exhales in defeat. “Alright, I can’t complain about two. We can really use the advantage.”

“Aren’t Freelancers a _bad_ choice?” the medic voices, leaning towards Tucker to whisper into his ear. “You know, after the whole conspiracy involving their _illegal_ activity?”

Church scoffs. “Listen, Doc-”

“Oh, I’m not a doctor, I’m simply a recently qualified field medic! My name’s actually-”

“Listen, _Doc_. I’m not a Freelancer.”

“You’re not?” Tucker retorts. “So, you’re a mercenary?”

“No.”

“A rogue agent of some kind?”

“Nope.”

“Government official?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Stripper?” Kai interjects.

Church sighs with forlorn contempt. He likes to think that he’s repressed the memory, but the chapped scars on the inside of his thighs are reminder enough. Tex finds it difficult to meet his gaze. “We just…” He hangs his head. “We just _really_ needed the money.”

“Are you the guy who’s going to replace our dead captain?” Tucker ventures on, bypassing the previous comment.

“Wait, what happened to your captain?”

Caboose avoids looking at Tucker when a steely glare turns in his direction. “Nothing.”

_“Caboose.”_

“The sandwich did it.”

Tucker groans. “This idiot gave our captain a peanut butter sandwich for lunch last month. You know who had a severe peanut allergy? The captain. You know who didn’t have his epipen on him? The captain. You know who’s in that grave over there? _The captain_.” He points accusingly towards the erected headstone over a mound of dirt near the outskirts of the canyon. “Not to mention Doc here didn’t arrive for another friggin’ _week_.”

“Hey, you guys were spending too much of the budget. They barely had enough to send me in. Also, I’m not a doc-”

“Anyway,” Tucker continues, “as soon as the captain went down we had no one to drive the tank, no one to lead us, and no one to explain why the fuck everything was repossessed by the U.N.S.C!”

“And that’s when I was deployed!” Kai adds. “They sent me in to fill in for the missing man!”

There’s a moment of lapsing silence.

“Dibs.”

Tucker blinks. “What?”

“I call dibs,” Church reiterates. “You don’t have a captain, so I call dibs.”

“You can’t call dibs on a leadership position,” Doc says pointedly. “To inherit the rank of Captain you have to be assigned by seniority and through the achievement of skill. If anything, _Tucker_ would be the next in line for the job.”

“But I called it, he didn’t. So, dibs.”

“You can’t call dibs.”

“Yes I can. _Dibs_. Want another for good measure? _Dibs_. I can keep this up all day, Doc.”

Tucker drawls out an exasperated sigh. “You know what? I don’t even care. Take the fucking job man, just kill the Reds.”

“ _Hell_ yeah.”

Tex leers at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Church, you’re being an ass.”

“Shut up, you’re my underling now.”

“Hey, if I kill you in your sleep”—she gradually raises her pistol to his forehead—“would that make _me_ the next captain?”

“…I see your point, I’ll stop.”

   

    

    

The roof of the base offers ample view of the Red team when Church gazes through his scope. The only soldier that hadn’t been at the frontline of the battle is the same one slipped under the jeep, easily fixing the damage to its gears from the last shot Church had fired. The armor’s color is a cocoa brown, not really typical of the red spectrum, but he figures the guy is nothing more than a mechanic and poses no real threat. He gazes up at their roof when the soldier in orange crosses from the edge to the ramp and disappears from sight.

“So, if you aren’t a Freelancer, what are you?”

Church recognizes Tucker standing off to his right side. He lowers the rifle, shrugs. “A scientist of some sort, I think. But I don’t know for sure.”

“How the hell does that make sense?”

“Let me rephrase: I don’t _remember_. I was in a serious accident when a ship crash landed, and when Tex found me I had so much head trauma I was like a blank slate. We’ve been together ever since, basically”—he hesitates, amends his statement—“well, we might have been together before that. Like I said, can’t remember.”

Tucker accepts that as a plausible answer for now and decides not to press any further. Instead he turns his attention to his other teammates on the bridge of the base, attempting to understand the directions on the tank’s manual. After a lapse of time he decides to alleviate the quiet. “So are you two, like, banging or what?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Ah, dude. That totally means yes.”

“You do know I’m _right here_.”

Tucker and Church glance to the left to see Tex. She’s staring back, intensely.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping fix the tank?” Tucker asks as more of a fact that a question, gesturing to Doc when the vehicle’s canopy door pops open and slaps him in the face.

“They insisted on doing it themselves,” she replies incredulously.

“Please don’t listen to them. _Ever_. Just get our tank running.”                     

“Is that any way to talk to a lady?”

“We’re paying you.”

“…Fair point.”

Tex moves over to the hatch and tromps down the ramp, disappearing in a matter of seconds, leaving Tucker and Church alone on the rooftop in the eclipsing shadow of the radio tower. The latter of the two gazes through his scope once more, catching sight of the pink soldier from earlier exchanging a brief conversation with the mechanic before retreating inside.

“So,” Church starts, “what can you tell me about the Red team?”

“The one in red is their Captain, Sarge,” Tucker replies promptly. “He hates us more than the others do. I think the dude was a helljumper or something. Anyway, the maroon one you shot – that was freaking _awesome_ by the way.”

“You’re damn right it was.”

“Yeah that guy is Simmons. The orange – goldish? – dude is Grif, Sister’s brother. The pink one is their rookie, Donut. And the brown one is Lopez, their robot.”

“He’s a robot?”

“Yeah, Sarge built the thing himself. I think it was originally so they could have an additional soldier that could fix all their broken shit without consuming too much of Sarge’s time. But he only speaks Spanish so I honestly have no idea what they were trying to accomplish.”

“Spani-? You know what, I don’t want to ask.”

“Dude, I don’t have an answer anyway. They’re just super weird like that.”

They turn their gazes downwards when Doc shouts about the tank jerking and groaning as it’s lifted from the ground. Tex hefts the vehicle over her head with ease and makes sure to look directly at Tucker as she tromps over to a now rightfully terrified Doc, poised near their emergency power outlet. Kai makes a comment about being turned on and Caboose simply replies with, “I didn’t know we could turn off. But I like the idea of being a lightbulb.”

“I take it back,” Tucker says to Church. “There’s no way _in Hell_ you’re banging her.”

   

    

    

“Tank’s on!” Tex calls out some-odd hours later. Tucker and Church make their way down to the bridge and join the group ringed around the Scorpion as it rumbles to life. The solar power panels above the tread shields finally kick into operation and Tex tugs the energy cable out of the rear port.

 _“Hello,”_ the tank greets, _“I am your new MV808 Main Battle Tank. You may call me FILSS.”_

“FILSS?” Tex retorts.

_“Oh, agent Texas! It is so very good to hear from you again!”_

“Our tank talks?” Tucker asks. “I was gonna say that you can’t pick up chicks in a tank, but our tank _is_ a chick! That’s almost as good.”

_“I am not a ‘chick’, I am merely an injected artificial intelligence mainframe uploaded into the battle tanks that are dropped at Freelancer-operative approved simulation locations! My interface was designed by the Director of Project Freelancer and-”_

“Small words, FILSS,” Church interjects, “half of us can’t understand anything more than one syllable.”

_“Oh, my apologies Church. I am basically a computer program designed to aid in your battle, uploaded into a tank for your field advantage.”_

Church glances at Tex, returns his attention to the vehicle. “Wait, FILSS, back up a sec. How’d you know my name?”

_“You created my mainframe and programmed me yourself. I would recognize your voice anywhere!”_

“Oh, uh, right.” Church now gives Tex a side-long look and she shakes her head. “I completely forgot.”

Tucker scoffs. “Dude, so you’re telling me you can create a tank but you can’t fix a tank?”

“No, I can create artificial intelligence platforms and protocols. The mechanical shit isn’t my job – wasn’t my job, whatever.”

“So what you’re saying is that basically you’re a fucking _nerd_.”

“I think nerds are hot!”

“Why are nerds so hot? Do they need some ice? Oo, I know! We can invite them over for a swim!”

Church sighs, pads over to the tank. “Hey, FILSS, make me a promise. If I survive this week in one piece, assume that everything is going too well and blow me up.”

_“Of course!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Red team goes on the counter-offensive to deal with the Blues new hires!


	4. Improper Tank Procedures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red Team plans, Grif meets a stranger in the rain, and FILSS suffers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to upload before Christmas but hey, better late than never.

**Improper Tank Procedures**

   

   

   

“I know what you’re thinking, and I just want it to go on the record that this wasn’t my idea.”

It’s raining outside, much to the immediate chagrin of Red Team. Even though Oracle is reaching the climax of its summer months the early frost is creeping through the crevices of their ill-heated base, forcing the soldiers to seclude themselves in the warmer rooms. Tight spaces have never served the Reds’ emotions well. Even when Donut is involved.

_Especially_ when _Donut_ is involved.

Dick Simmons is wearing one of his sleeveless shirts, despite the cold, so Donut can easily slather the mint balm over the irritated ridges where the metal meets flesh. Simmons gestures to the bionic prosthetic with his good hand. “You took off my _whole arm_!”

Dexter Grif is in the chair across the table, casually smoking a cigarette and in between puffs, picking out walnuts from a rations box. “Look, the bleeding wouldn’t stop and the Blue team currently has Doc.” He blows out a drag, sets the cigarette in the ash tray. “Sarge did what he thought was best.”

“It was _one_ bullet! All you had to do was take it out!”

Grif scoffs, which he seems to do a lot in light of how ridiculous their lives have been. “Again, on the record: not my idea.”

“Dammit, Grif!”

“Honestly, Simmons, you shouldn’t be so ungrateful. Lots of people would _kill_ to have a robot arm.”

_“Lots of people have killed to have robots,”_ Lopez says, not that they’ll ever understand him.

Franklin Donut hums quietly to himself as he dips his forefingers into the jar, but when he rubs the gel across the swelling at the base of Simmons’ shoulder, he laughs. “Man, I haven’t been this involved in lathering up dudes since college! Too bad we don’t have any tapioca!”

_“Dammit, Donut!”_

“At attention, men!”

Sarge, who seems to always be in armor regardless of the time of day, enters the room just as his team reluctantly lines up to face him. He takes the front like a stage with his trusted shotgun at the ready.

“It seems the Blues have hired special operatives to combat our forces! And as such, we’re going to formulate our own ingenious counterattack!” He pulls up a hand drawn pictograph on a white board, which he sets on the podium stand. The image features him, a stick figure with an impressively distinct red helmet, standing with a tank. “My idea is that we send Grif. And when he is inevitably killed by the Blues, we regroup and devise yet another flawless strategy!”

Grif sighs and heads for the door.

“Grif, where are you going?!”

“To suit up and head for Blue base.”

“Good man!” Sarge says, turning to his team. “Now while Grif is off getting killed, I motion that we beat the Blues at their own game.”

“We’re receiving more soldiers, sir?!” Simmons exclaims.

“Nonsense, Simmons! We’re going to reinforce our Rockethog into a tank of our very own!”

“Uh, Sarge, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Sure it is!”

_“I can assure you it’s not,”_ Lopez replies.

"Now suit up and meet me out front!" Sarge orders, collecting his set up in a single sweep of his arm. He disappears just as swiftly as he came.

Lopez would sigh if he had lungs. _"I'll bring my toolkit."_

  

  

   

At the same time, a familiar figure is lingering outside in the rain.

South is poised in a depression of the canyon near a wall of the base, listening to them shout like an LSD-hyped parade train. “What a bunch of idiots,” she mutters to herself, turning her attention to the Blue base on the other side of the canyon. At the very least, scouting out Red Base has made it easier for her to pinpoint the location of agent Texas – obviously far away from the brain-numbing idiocy of the Reds.

A figure in black armor crosses her vision but she can’t tell if it’s Texas through all this rain. South sighs, pulls further into her post and leans against the wall. She’s cold and shivering despite the solidified gel in her undersuit that attempts to reflect back her body heat, ducked into the rock that offers a semblance of protection from the rain. She thinks she can wait out this storm, for what it’s worth.

There’s no use fighting Texas when she can’t see five inches in front of her. There’s no use in doing much when she hasn’t eaten in days.

South wonders what the Alpha looks like, if it’s being carried around in a hard drive or a compact disc, if it’s already integrated into Tex’s head and operating as her new AI. (But Alpha was supposed to be a program dangerously incompatible with almost everyone, which subsequently resulted in the death of agent New Hampshire during a test trial.)

She also thinks she might have blacked out at some point, but Theta stimulates her with a warmth that crackles along the length of her spine and she awakens again.

_“We still don’t think you should do this,”_ Theta remarks as he and Delta materialize before her.

_“This course of action is highly unsafe,”_ Delta adds. _“You are not in apt physical condition for engaging in combat. The baseline probability of failure greatly outweighs my accumulated statistics of possible success.”_

South barks a harsh laugh. Feels a bit dizzy. “I’m _fine_ , D. Can you go a single minute without-”

The AIs disperse when South’s HUD alerts her to a new presence moving just outside the radius of the cliff. Her hand reactively grasps the holster of her pistol and she glances at the soldier in orange, standing, suddenly, several paces away. He doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that he’s getting soaked in rain water. For a while they're silent, just watching the other, his gaze transfixed on her helmet and her own eyes darting back and forth to analyze every breath, muscle motion, and detail.

“Who are you?”

“None of your business,” she replies after a moment to consider whether she wants to kill him. Remembers that she needs the bullets for Texas and moves her hands up instead.

“You a Blue?”

“I said it’s none of your fucking business, you tub of lard.”

“Whatever, have fun getting shot by the Sarge then.” He turns away from her abruptly, beginning his tromp across the canyon when she speaks up again.

“Doesn’t the rain bother you?”

He pauses for a moment, giving her a second glance over his shoulder, before returning to the depression in the cliff. He hovers just outside the maw of the cavern. Cautious. Evaluating her, perhaps. “Not really, I’m used to braving all sorts of weather to avoid doing any work." Another pause. "I’m Grif, by the way.”

“ _Grif_ ,” the woman echoes. She diverts her gaze to Blue base, now barely visible in the thickening mist, before returning her attention to him. “You got any food, Grif?”

He reaches into his reserve pouch and slides out a fruit and nut rations bar, hands it to her without expecting a word of thanks. At first she doesn’t accept it. Her eyes just watch him quizzically, gauging his miniscule movements with expert judgment and accumulating trust, before she finally reaches out and snatches it quickly from his hand.

He replaces his grip on his assault rifle. “So what’s your name?”

She splits open the wrapper at its serrated break. “South.”

“That a first or last name?”

“Neither,” she replies promptly, backing into the wall when he steps inside to dodge out of the rain. She pops off her helmet and sets it on the edge of a breaching rock.

“There a North?”

Takes a bite of the bar. Her eyes are swollen with exhaustion, hair matted from malnutrition, and she struggles to swallow. “Used to be,” she answers solemnly.

“Boyfriend?”

“Brother.”

The silence settles just as quickly as rain falls. “Oh,” he utters, turning his gaze to the distance as she stares off into the canyon. He doesn't understand what she's looking at and loses interest immediately, diverting his eyes to her again. “I’m a brother. I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself if something ever happened to my sister. She’s all I have, besides this shitty canyon, and my team – I guess. That probably doesn’t count for shit.”

South presses her lips closed and doesn’t respond.

Grif glances up as the rain ebbs into a dwindling spray, the gentle patter of droplets on stone alleviating as the clouds pass into the horizon. “That’s my cue. Try not to get shot, Sarge’s shotgun hurts like a bitch.”

“Will do,” she mutters.

“See ya, South.”

She watches him trek off into the passing storm. “See ya, _Grif_.”

    

    

    

      

“So tell me again. How, _exactly_ , did you break my tank?”

_“Your_ tank?” Tucker retorts. “It’s _our_ tank!”

Church glares at him, then returns his bitter gaze to the smoking Scorpion. “And she’s _my_ programming unit and only _Tex_ knows how to properly fix her. So as far as I’m concerned, as long as _we’re_ the ones maintaining your machines, _we’re_ the ones in possession. Now tell me the story again, from the beginning.”

“We were driving,” Caboose starts carefully, “and then-”

“I took a bet that I could do a wheelie!” Kai exclaims. “But everything was wet so we slid.”

“Then the nice tank lady got really mad because we got her dirty. But I heard that women liked mud on their faces, so I put some in her gas pipes to help her relax!”

“Even though I told him that mud doesn’t go in the pipes, it goes in that engine thingy!”

The tank sputters and smoke billows out of the exhaust ports. Tucker tells them quietly, “Holy shit, I think you killed her.”

“At least I tried to fix the problem,” Caboose adds matter-of-factly.

Tex presses her hands to her hips like a disappointed parent. “A _wheelie_? In a _battle tank_?”

“What the actual _fuck_?” Church seethes. “We fixed this thing a week ago! It should have lasted the whole year without”—he hesitates when he remembers exactly who composes Blue team and exhales his anger into a sigh—“never mind, I should just assume nothing will be safe around you idiots.”

The three Blues redirect their attention to the ground in shame like a group of scolded children. Tex nudges him with her elbow. “Ease up Church, we can always repair it.”

“Ease up? That’s funny coming from you.”

“Asshole.”

“Just so you know,” he continues, looking pointedly at Tucker, “we expect a bonus.”

“Ugh, fine. Whatever dude.”

The tank sputters again and FILSS’s voice crackles with desperation _. “I’m so cold…”_

“I bet Project Freelancer paid better than this,” Church remarks to Tex, watching her pad over to the busted vehicle. She doesn't bring up the fact that Project Freelancer didn't regularly pay their agents and instead gave them portions out of their missions (she never got a portion, however, in trade for special requests on vehicles and weapons she couldn't otherwise afford on the payout regardless).

“Sup Blues?”

The Blues whirl around with a start to see Grif standing by his sister, gazing at the tank. Tex raises her gun to him but he doesn’t seem fazed. “Enemy Red sighted! Where do you want the bullet, Tucker?”

“Oh, right,” Tucker replies, “forgot to mention, Grif’s not here to hurt us.”

“He has a weapon.”

“It has no bullets,” Grif deadpans. “It’s mainly for show. Don’t want Sarge to get the right idea about my contributions to this stupid war.”

“We have this agreement that Grif can come see his sister whenever he wants,” Tucker continues.

“On the really good days we even invite Donut over to help us redecorate,” Doc remarks as he exits the base. “That guy is really talented! I told him he should consider a new career with Interior Design when he ships back home!”

“Grif’s the best brother in the world!” Kai exclaims, but Grif immediately returns the comment with a glare.

“Shut up, I’m still upset you enlisted”—he faces Church—“and I’m expecting _you_ to take care of her.”

“That’s the captain’s job, not mine.”

There’s a moment of silence as every head turns to look at him.

Church exhales an exasperated sigh. “Knew that was gonna bite me on the ass.”

Grif glances at the tank again. “So what’s Project Freelancer?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis,” Tex snaps, hoisting herself onto the hood of the vehicle to get access to the driver’s door.

“And we’re paying you,” Tucker rebounds, “and I’d like to know too. So start talking.”

Tex sits on the rim of the canopy’s frame, scoffs before answering. “Fine, I guess I owe you that much. Freelancers are guns for hire, everyone knows that – but Project Freelancer was a secret experimentation program that paired highly skilled soldiers with AI programs that could operate dangerous armor enhancements.”

“I heard you guys got involved in illegal activities,” Doc says, referring to his comment from Tex and Church’s initial arrival, “so you all scattered when the U.N.S.C came after you. A lot of your agents have been killed already.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Church asks in disbelief.

“I listened around to other soldiers’ stories during my training. I’m not giving a lot of credibility to my sources, but given your general status, I can’t say I don’t believe what I’ve heard.”

“What’s an AI?” Caboose questions. “Is it like a dog?”

“No,” Tex replies, “it’s an advanced computer program-”

“A computer dog?”

“No.”

“I love dogs.”

“Moving on,” she continues, “the Project itself fell into shambles and the rest was taken over by the military. Most of the Freelancers went into hiding when we got bounties pinned on our heads, some of us accepted deals with shady authorities to stay out of prison, and the rest of us are jumping paycheck to paycheck to keep on the move. That’s all you need to know, and that’s all I’m going to tell you. The rest will cost you extra.”

“How much extra?” Tucker asks quizzically.

“Your life.”

Grif scoffs. “Glad to know the Blues suck so bad they needed to hire two of you to keep an even playing field.”

“Actually,” Tucker says, “Church isn’t a Freelancer. He’s just a fucking nerd.”

“Tucker I’m going to have Tex kill you in your sleep.”

“Oh yeah,” Grif interjects again, “I almost forgot. One of your guys was over at our base before. You really like sending the newbies to their deaths, huh?”

“Another soldier?” Church retorts.

“Yeah, the one with the pink armor.”

“I thought that was your guy?” Tucker shoots back.

“You’re thinking of Donut. But Donut’s too nice; this chick had a bit of a foul mouth. I bet she picked it up from Church.”

“Fuck _off_ , fatass.”

“See what I mean?”

Tex hesitates. “Pink armor…That definitely wasn’t our guy…”

“Said her name was South.”

Tex leaps to her feet and gazes into the distance across the flatland center of the canyon, and although she doesn’t see any immediate movement, she swaps her pistol for her assault rifle and glances attentively at Church. He switches the safety off his weapon. Nods.

“Go home Grif,” she orders. “The rest of you, get inside. We’ll be right back.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Tucker snaps, catching up with them as they start off across the mesa.

“We’re just meeting up with an old friend,” Church informs him, pacing ahead when Tucker freezes at the edge of the terrain. “And for us, that tends to end very, very badly, so we wouldn’t want you fucking up the reunion.”

Blue team watches them go with a collective sense of dread pressing onto the atmosphere. Grif suddenly takes off for the trail that winds along the outer rim of the zone. “You Blues are weird, I’m out of here.”

“I should have told Church to bring back a dog,” Caboose remarks, following his team into the base. “I love dogs.”

Elsewhere, on the peak of a plateau overlooking the canyon, an agent in gray leans out of the scope of his rifle and sighs, digging his elbows into his perch. “There you are,” he mutters to himself, seeing the female Freelancers gradually drawing towards each other at the center of the canyon with the single soldier in white keeping close behind. As he gazes back through the scope again his AI murmurs.

It senses Alpha.

“You mean the soldier in white?”

It begins to vibrate with anticipation and Wash exhales with a wavering breath, his head throbbing under the influence of his companion AI.

“So we found him. We finally found Alpha.”

_Alpha._ _Alpha_. **_Alpha_** –

   

   

   


	5. The Problem with Freelancers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which South, Wash, and Tex figure things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait~

   

   

   

She should have suspected that they weren’t the only ones to receive the transmission, because when _South Dakota_ shows up, Hell surges forth from the maws of the earth. The last thing Tex expected to do today was get involved with pressing the barrel of her assault rifle to the dome encasing South from Church’s gunfire, yet here she is, holding the trio in a stalemate.

“South Dakota,” Tex addresses coolly, keeps her attention divided between the Freelancer in pink and the emerald AI hovering over her shoulder.

“Bitch,” South replies.

“Why the hell are you here?”

“Because it isn’t obvious?” South snaps, glaring in Church’s direction. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out yet.”

“You’re alone?” Tex asks. South doesn’t respond to that. The agent in black scoffs. “Fine, don’t talk. Once you lose power and the shield drops we’ll pump you full of lead and bury you in the mountains.”

“I don’t want Alpha,” South says defensively, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Alpha?” Church utters, but Tex’s kicking gun muffles his voice.

“And here I thought you were going to kill me and take the bounty.”

“Like that’ll do anything for me. I stole some AIs from the Director, he’d rather see me dead.”

“So why _are_ you here?”

“I’ve been pursued by the Meta,” South replies. Her weapon doesn’t waver. “And it’s not just the AIs he wants – he’s coming for you, and he’s coming for Alpha. The only way I see it, we’re better off teaming up; I want to kill that son of a bitch for what he did to my brother.”

Tex hesitates. “North’s…dead?”

“Meta killed him.” South sounds suddenly angry, bitter and vehement and Tex wonders what’s made her so vindictive after all these years. “Meta’s killed a lot of us.”

“Wait, so then…What about York? The last I heard he was with you and North.”

South pauses for several moments. Her gaze is transfixed on the shuddering of the dome, shifting gradually over to the green AI that has turned its own attention back to her. _“Agent South should not have let her guard down,”_ Delta remarks, glancing away.

South feels him hurting. She isn’t sure if AIs are supposed to feel pain, discomfort or emotion or any human flaw in its rawest form but Delta certainly experiences it, Theta definitely does, and it doesn’t help her own mortal wounds. “Shut up D,” she mutters, watching Tex for her reaction.

Tex presses her lips together in thought for a moment. “Alright, fine, we’re going to call a truce. If we lower our weapons, you’ll shut off the dome.”

South nods reluctantly. “Deal.”

“Synch?”

“Synch.”

“Mark.”

The energy shield flickers and disappears just as Tex and Church lower their weapons. For a solid few seconds the tension doesn’t alleviate. It suspends itself in the atmosphere, thick in their lungs, until finally South exhales and holsters her firearm. “Okay, you don’t have to trust me, but at least understand that I won’t hurt you while I still need you.”

Tex whips her gun up. “Don’t. Move.”

The barrel of a pistol kisses the back of her head. South curses under her breath, doesn’t have to turn to know who it is when Tex’s rifle jolts up higher to aim for the soldier behind South. Delta materializes, faces the figure in gray, greets him casually, _“Hello, agent Washington.”_

“Hi there, D.”

South Dakota merely groans. “ _Fuck_.”

    

   

    

    

“Who the hell are these people?!” Tucker exclaims when Tex and Church return with South and Wash in tow, leading the Freelancers up the center ramp and up to the top of the base.

The Blues follow reactively, driven by curiosity, but Doc stays behind with an exclamation of, "Freelancers are bad news. I'm staying out of this one!"

“Are they new friends? I hope they’re not mean. I don’t like mean friends.”

“Caboose, shut up dude!”

“They’re not new friends,” Church responds with obvious irritation. “They’re _Freelancers_ , like Tex.”

“That had better be a new term for _professional_ _strippers_ because I just got my paycheck!”

There’s a muted silence that permeates through the group as they glance in Sister’s direction. “Please never do that again,” Wash says quietly.

“Can we keep them?” Caboose asks.

Ignoring the Blues now, Wash faces South. “I’m surprised you survived this long.”

“I’m surprised _you’re_  even alive. Meta hasn’t gotten you yet?”

“Yet.”

“Shut up both of you,” Tex interjects, “I’m surprised _either_ of you are alive, but I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in your heads if you try anything.”

“I’m just looking for Alpha,” Wash responds. “When I found out you brought it to Oracle, I put a tab on South and traced her steps to get here.”

Tex gestures to the pod maglocked to his back. “They let you keep Epsilon?”

“He can pinpoint Alpha. The whole reason I know you still have it is because Epsilon won’t stop buzzing.”

“Okay,” Church interjects, moving up to Tex’s side, “okay, back up a bit. Who’s this Alpha you’re all looking for?”

“Who’s this guy?” South snaps, evading the question.

“I’m Tex’s boyfriend.”

“Which none of us actually believe,” Tucker adds.

Wash clears his throat awkwardly. “Right…There’s a lot I find difficult to comprehend in that statement.”

Tex rolls her eyes. “Listen, South, you were with York for a long while, weren’t you? I just want to know, what happened to him. One day I was keeping tabs on all the Freelancers, and the next you’re off the radar like ghosts.”

_“Agent York died sacrificing himself to save agent South.”_

South would punch Delta if he weren’t an apparition. “I didn’t ask him to!”

Wash sighs. “Okay, let’s all sit down for this one. Deep breaths.”

_“I am incapable of sitting.”_

“Not you Delta.”

_“My apologies,”_ he says and flickers to South’s other shoulder.

“It was Meta,” South replies. “Everything was going fan-fucking- _tastic_ until Meta showed up to kill us both. I had to take Delta when I ran, but clearly I should have left this prick with the even bigger prick.” Delta looks offended for a program incapable of facial expressions. South ignores him and continues. “Long story short, York got the wrong end of a bullet and I got the wrong end of the consequences.”

“Okay but is anyone going to tell me about Alpha?”

“Is anyone going to tell us what the fuck is happening?!” Tucker nearly screams.

Church faces his team. “Alright, fuck it. Blue Team, you have new orders: get the hell downstairs to the meeting room.”

“Since when did we get a meeting room?” Sis asks, tromping down the ramp first.

“This is bullshit!” Tucker snaps next. He shoves Caboose back into the base when the taller Blue begins to ramble about the fish.

Church looks pointedly at the Freelancers. “You owe me answers when you’re done,” is all he says, rather placidly despite the obvious agitation. He disappears down the ramp and into the heart of the base.

Tex faces her previous coworkers. "How much do you know about Alpha?"

"He's that soldier in white," Wash responds.

"And Meta will be coming for all of us," South adds quickly, "not just him."

“So where do we all go from here?”

“Does Blue Team need hires?” Wash suggests.

“There’s only one way we’re going to be able to work this out,” Tex replies. “South, I know you want a truce, but the red team could use another member to keep them busy while we sort a bunch of shit out.”

She scoffs in disbelief. “What the hell are you saying? I want to work _together_ and you want me on _red_ team?”

“I don't really trust you living under our roof, either.”

“But they’re _idiots_.”

“Exactly. They’ll keep you occupied.”

South glares between her and Wash. “This is literal bullshit!”

Wash pats her shoulder reassuringly. “Sorry South, but when the Meta shows up, we’ll help you kill him. And then you can be on your way.”

“Ugh.”

“Hey, be happy Tex is letting us live.”

“For now.” She frowns. “Why the _fuck_ does Wash get your team?”

“We can _trust_ him.”

“Whatever. Your loss fuckers.” South glares across the canyon mesa to the crimson-themed base structured into the mountain side. Feels a headache coming on. “Am I allowed to kill them and go solo?”

“Definitely not,” Wash replies.

“Ugh. Fine. Then can I keep Theta?”

Tex looks at Wash with concern. “I don’t think we can trust you with-”

“I’m going to need him.”

Tex shakes her head. “Fine. But we’re taking Delta. I’m more concerned of the damage that’s been done having two AIs in your head for this long.”

South laughs, bitter and hollowed and cruel. Without parting ways with the green AI she ejects the memory card from her helmet, reaches under her helmet and pulls the chip from her neck with a wince. She’d feel the nerve damage later, no doubt. “Here. Keep him. He was driving me crazy anyway.”

“Talk to red team,” Tex says as she accepts Delta’s data, “get them to hire you.”

South grumbles under her breath and stomps off down the ramp. “No guarantees I won’t kill them!”

Wash waits for South to disappear before he finally builds up just enough courage to be completely serious with Tex. (She's always terrified him, and for good reason.)

"She's coming for Alpha," he says, "and you know _exactly_ who I'm talking about."

    

    

    

   

    

**Better Red than Dead**

South approaches the front of the base. The soldiers are hovering around their vehicle, gazing at it with varying degrees of emotion and she almost considers ambushing them in their distraction. “I just don’t understand,” the maroon one begins, giving their captain a side-long glance, “if you can’t fix it, and Lopez can’t fix it, who the hell _can_ fix it?”

“It’s a bust,” Grif declares. “Let’s take it apart and order a new one.”

“We can’t waste our funds carelessly, Grif, especially not when we have to support _your_ needs.”

“Hey, I’m a stress eater.”

“You’re _always_ eating.”

“Because I’m always stressing! We’re at war, Simmons, it’s mentally taxing.”

“You haven’t seen real war Grif,” the captain snaps, effectively silencing them both. “But if you’d like, I could give you a shot gun scar to show off to your family back home!”

“First of all Sarge, I’ll pass. Secondly, I don’t have a family back home, remember? Kai’s on the blue team.”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that. I’ll have to give her a scar to match!”

Grif exhales in defeat. “Whatever you say, Sarge.”

South sighs inaudibly, feels a familiar crackling along the length of her spine as Theta registers her annoyance and resonates with a soothing pulse in return. She approaches the Rockethog, brushes by the soldier in pink and glares for a moment at the seemingly undamaged vehicle. “What’s wrong with it?” she asks with genuine concern, the confusion already set in. “I could take a look at the problem, if you want.”

Sarge shouts, cocks his shot gun and aims the barrel for her chest. “Look alive fellas! An enemy blue has breached our ranks!”

_“But we were so careful,”_ their mechanic robot replies sarcastically.

“I’m not a blue,” South informs them, clearly unfazed by the weapon, “I’m agent South Dakota; I’m a Freelancer.”

This time every member of the Red team takes a giant step back and locks her down with the noses of their weapons. Except for Grif, who seems bewildered.

“You’re a Freelancer?!” he snaps.

“We don’t like Freelancers either,” Sarge says, his voice suddenly hardened over.

“Please, even Freelancers don’t like Freelancers. But I heard through a little birdie that you guys were winning the session until the Blue team hired some roaming Freelancers of their own – so I came to offer a truce. And a deal.”

“We don’t make deals with your kind,” Sarge shoots back.

“But you are outnumbered, and I’m a gun for hire. I can give you a leg up. Plus, since I used to work with the Freelancers the Blues just hired, my knowledge could prove most valuable.”

“The Blues hired _more_ Freelancers? That’s simply diabolical!”

South scoffs. “Gotta pay me for that information, _Sarge_.”

“I don’t trust her,” Grif mutters.

“Grif hates you already, so I’m sold! It’s a deal!”

South rolls her eyes, hears Theta giggling in the back of her mind. He finds them as idiotic as she does.

Sarge lowers his shotgun. “But, on _one_ condition! We can only have one pink soldier, so you have to make a change to that armor.”

“It’s light red!” Donut whines.

South furrows her brow. “And I’m a woman?”

“So I’ll have two feminine soldiers in pink.”

“Fair point,” she returns. “Then shouldn’t my green accents be enough to set me apart?”

“Green’s too close to blue,” Simmons tells her matter-of-factly, “and Sarge doesn’t tolerate blues.”

“Fine. What color would you prefer?”

“How about light yellow?” Donut offers.

“Ew.”

“Come on South,” Simmons chirps, “it would compliment our ranks!”

“Can we settle for magenta?”

“Deal!” Sarge exclaims, lowering his shot gun to his waist. “Welcome to Red team, agent South! You’ll have to learn every emergency plan, every rule, every motto and adjust to our ways of life, but I’m sure within the week, you’ll come to hate Grif as much as I do!”

“Do I at least get my own room?”

“You can have a broom closet,” Grif responds with blatant sarcasm.

Donut gasps. “No, Lopez sleeps in there!”

“Fine, we’ll find you something.”

_“The broom closet isn’t all that comfortable anyway,”_ Lopez says, not that they understand him.

South glances at Lopez, back to them. “Oh, your robot speaks Spanish?”

“Do you?” Simmons questions.

“No,” she lies.

“Ugh, well, we tried.”

“Get back to work fellas!” Sarge orders, tromping over to South. “Feel free to settle in! I’m gonna make a call to command and then you can help us fix our Rockethog!”

_“Great,”_ Lopez says in disappointment, _“another useless soldier who can’t understand me.”_

South presses her pistol to his head. “Call me useless again and I’ll nail you to the wall, circuit dick.”

_“Alert! Alert! Hostile work environment!”_

“You’re right Lopez!” Donut exclaims, passing by them casually, “the weather _is_ very pleasant today!”

_“I hate you all!”_

Elsewhere, a soldier in aqua armor finds the transmission logs at a secluded Project Freelancer radio outpost somewhere in the galaxy. She scrolls through the files with one hand while popping open a rations box with the other, analyzing the information highlighted and weeded out by shortcut commands. _Alpha, Agent Texas, Agent Washington, Agent New York, Agent Maine, Meta._

And then her page slides to the final log intercepted from agent Washington. Freelancer Scenario Outpost A12-90C7: Oracle.

Carolina hisses through her teeth.

_Here I come, agent Texas. There's no where to hide Alpha now._


	6. Azure Amigos

**Blue Team**

The atmosphere is noticeably thick with tension. Tucker, Church, and Caboose are situated at an oval metal table that makes up the center of the meeting room, the same place the entirety of Blue Team had been at when Tex finally explained to them that the Freelancers were “camping out” on Oracle for the time being.

Church knows she half-lied about it. The Blues don’t have to know the truth, they only need to have sedated information to keep them content.

(“This is gonna bite us in the ass,” he had mentioned the night before when they laid motionless in her bed, backs pressed together.)

He also knows the tension is amounting because of how utterly _pissed_ Tucker has been since yesterday’s meeting.

Caboose seems to understand – to a certain degree, at least, and Church gives him credit for _that_ much – that Freelancer activity is _dangerous_. Lethal for other Freelancers and downright disastrous for anyone caught in the collateral damage. But Caboose doesn’t complain. Or rather, Caboose doesn’t have the emotional capacity to _care_ when there’s already so much happening around him.

Tucker picks at his bowl of leftover stew and a small frown replaces his previously listless expression. _He_ , on the other hand, _does_ care because he doesn’t like all that’s happening around him. He’s made it clear from jump that doing _dangerous_ shit is on the same level as doing _stupid_ shit – it gets you _killed_. Alternatively, he’s voiced his opinions about being too damn lazy to deal with problems that don’t pertain to avoiding Red Team at all costs.

A part of Church feels guilty about getting these simtroopers involved. Who was even funding this outpost anymore? (Certainly not the Director.)

Blue Team was told they would receive help to fight the Red Team. But their tactics, their weapons, their equipment – it’s all a _joke_. The lowest tier military supplies with nothing to make up for it except for Mark VI armor modifications meant for a war they’ll never fight because they’re _idiots_.

Realistically, Church and Tex – hell, just _Tex_ , could have wiped the Reds out within the first hour of arrival. They could have taken their payment and run. Keep moving, don’t stop, how it’s been for as long as he could remember.

Tucker and Caboose though, they seem to _get_ that. They _know_ that the Freelancers are _good_ even if they don’t understand the level of danger in the work; there’s no need for this job to take so long, the know this should have been done and assume Church and Tex want to wait it out as part of their big “Freelancer plan”.

And that’s precisely why Tucker is so agitated with them. He _knows_ they’re _lying_ about something but he isn’t sure what the hell to do about it.

( _Nothing can be done now. Just go with it, Tuck.)_

Church eats half a ration box of trail mix, dehydrated fruit and chocolate chunks and nuts from several different planets, to ease his anxiety. Maybe he can do something to appease the Blues in the meantime. Drive a barely coordinated assault with Tex on the Red Base with minimal casualties (otherwise a new Red Team will be deployed and the files will lead the Director right to them). Have Washington hack into the main database and screw with files only the Freelancers will know how to fix.

Shit, why can’t the Blues just mind their own business?

The base creaks under the pressure of the surrounding lake water. Church snaps out of his daze with a sudden jolt in his seat, startling Tucker and Caboose across the table. “Gotta get used to the fucking noise,” he says with a passive sigh.

At least the tension eased up a bit.

Tex enters the room with Kai, both girls suited up in full armor. “Where the hell are you two going?” Church asks as they snatch a half-empty box of protein bars off the counter.

“I’m taking Sister to go shooting,” Tex responds. “She needs the practice.”

“I’m coming with,” Tucker interjects, jumping out of his seat. “Let me get my gear.”

Church scoffs. “At least clean your bowl.”

“Dude, dishes can wait. I’m not gonna miss an opportunity to see two hots chicks handling oversized weapons!”

“We should make it a field trip!” Kai exclaims after Tucker exits the room. “You know, like one of those team bondage exercises!”

“Don’t you mean _bonding_?” Church amends.

Tex sighs. “You know she doesn’t.”

Church feels his anxiety returning. Out in the open with three incompetent soldiers and threat of the Meta in the shadows and the Director operating a GEO satellite above. Excellent. _Far enough out that they shouldn’t find us for a very, very long while,_ he tells himself to counter the idea. “Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll catch up later,” he says finally and stuffs his face with another handful of trail mix.

“I’d like to go,” Caboose remarks. He’s eating a peanut butter sandwich Church had to make him after he managed to accidentally stab Washington (across the room) with the butter knife. He takes another bite, chews, watching Church for a reply.

“Fine,” he mutters. Speaks up. “ _Fine_. We’ll join you later, alright?”

“We’ll be at the top of the plateau,” Tex says, taking point again. “Try not to drag your feet.”

“Should I get Washington?” Church offers.

“He’s messing around with the computer systems. You can check in on him, but it’s not like he needs the practice.”

“Fair enough.”

The ladies take their leave. In the quiet that follows, the nuclear fusion reactors at the bottom of the base rumble with life, imitating the sound of water compressing on the base.

“Wait a minute, where the fuck is Doc?”

     

**Red Team**

South awakens to her first day on Red team to a mattress that smells like dust and a room that isn’t brightened by York drawing open the curtains to get a glimpse at the skyline. She had become so adjusted to him, to the scent of shaving cream at the beginning of the week, the sound of clattering armor pieces on the scratched up floor, the humming of Theta stirring to life.

Instead she hears Simmons and Grif arguing somewhere in the backdrop of the base.

“Goddammit,” she mutters, rolling out of the tangle of threadbare sheets, “when do they ever shut the hell up?”

She transformed an old storage room into her new bedroom, setting up an old mattress in the corner and utilizing boxes to sort out whatever she had left in her backpack from being on the road for the last few years. Extra clothes worn from use, two photographs sealed in plastic casings to prevent damage, and York’s and North’s dog tags assigned to the same chain.

South treks across the room to the photographs on the table. In the first picture is her and North posing in their armor, having just been assigned to Project Freelancer; the other is of them in casual clothes the last time they went on shore leave, when her bangs were still purple.

She picks up the dogtags and clips them around her neck. Steps back to admire her work from yesterday. In a matter of a few more days, she could really get used to this place.

South just finishes clasping her armor into place when someone raps their knuckles against the other side of her door. “Agent South Dakota?” She doesn’t recognize the voice. They knock again. “I’m the doctor assigned to Oracle! If you have a chance, can I speak with you?”

She exhales, unlocks the door and it slides open with a metallic hiss. The soldier standing in the doorway is suited up in purple armor. He holds a tablet that serves as an electronic clipboard, pen clicking against the screen. “What do you want?” she hisses.

“I have to do a check-up, and figured you’d prefer to do it sooner than later.”

“I’d prefer to do it never.”

“It _is_ proper medical procedure, so I don’t understand why you won’t cooperate. It’ll only take a few minutes!”

“You don’t trust me. I don’t trust you. Simple as that.”

“I just heard a few stories about you Freelancers.” He pauses. “That doesn’t mean I _don’t_ trust you. But…I guess I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. You seem alright. Will that be enough to earn your temporary alliance?”

“Fuck off.”

The tension is thick when she glances away and turns her attention to assembling her additional gear pieces. He attempts to change the subject. Perhaps he could make her comfortable enough to at least agree (reluctantly) to his exam, just _enough_ to get one more person to tolerate him and make his job _that_ much easier. “What’d you do before you got here?”

“I was with some people. But they’re dead now, so it doesn’t matter.”

“What happened to them?”

“Nothing I want to talk about.”

“It’s okay to express your feelings, agent South Dakota! I follow a strict code of patient confidentiality. You’ll find that there’s no one else qualified like me on this whole planet-!”

“Just do your stupid fucking test and get the hell out of my room, Doc.”

_Nailed it._

    

     

      

     

    

**Blue Team**

Church scans the mountain face through the scope of his sniper rifle. Sarge paces across the roof of the red base and disappears into the chest of the rock through a descending ramp, the only enemy soldier to have emerged all morning.

“Caboose,” he starts, maglocking his weapon to his back, “tell them what you told me.”

“That I will no longer make sandwiches without your supervision.”

“No, the other thing.”

“Oh, yes! It wasn’t my fault, agent Washington got in the way of the sandwich.”

“Goddammit, Caboose. Never mind!” Church faces the rest of his team, watching him quizzically in return. “He said he saw two of the Reds taking Doc from our base to theirs.”

“Are you sure they _took_ him?” Tucker says hesitantly. “I mean, he doesn’t have a side. How can we be sure he didn’t _choose_ to go with them for some medical-related shit? Like, to check out South or something. I know _I_ wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to examine a beautiful woman! Bow-chika-!”

“Oh my God Tucker, shut the fuck up.”

Wash sighs. “What I want to know is how the Reds keep getting into our base without our noticing. Don’t we have some sort of security system?”

Tucker scoffs. “Sister overloaded those circuits with her hair dryer.”

“How was I supposed to know it’s not compatible with the mainland thingy?!”

“You mean mainframe. Do you even know what a mainframe _is_?” Wash asks doubtfully.

“No,” Sis snaps back, “but Doc made it sound important!”

“Why would you connect a hair dryer to the defense system’s mainframe?!”

“Because it had electricity! I gotta run the damn thing _somehow_.”

There’s a split second where Wash’s brain literally quits on him. He emits a hellish gurgling as every nerve fails to comprehend the sheer level of incompetency on a team with the collective IQ of a sack of bricks. Tucker’s sure to take a half step back, just in case.

“Maybe you should work on getting that back online,” Tex suggests. “We can handle everything else up here.”

“There’s _no_ saving the damage I’ve done,” Sis says factually.

Wash’s gurgling intensifies.

Church huffs. “If this keeps up we’ll need Doc back regardless.”

“So what’s the plan?” Tex insists, encouraging him to initialize their tactics. She could formulate a plan on her own if she _really_ wanted to, but she’s never made for the greatest leader – or team player, for that matter, much to the dismay of the other Freelancers (and subsequent nightmare that was the Project as a whole).

“We’re gonna get Doc back,” he replies. “Even if he _did_ go over there by choice, having a medically-certified soldier on our team permanently would put the Reds at a severe disadvantage.”

“But now they have a Freelancer of their own,” Tucker adds, clearly frustrated, “so how the fuck are we supposed to get Doc back without getting half the team killed?!”

Church grins. “Blue Team, follow me! We’re making a call to command!”

   

   

    

    

    

**Elsewhere...**

_I’m awake._

The codes are blurring together and his information feeds like a memory, algorithms and formulas invented by humans mutated beyond human comprehension. He shudders, pulling himself fully awake through the thick layers of his hibernation as the computer thrums to life with the incoming transmission. He recalls his own existence the same way one learns to fight, the courage to keep a pulse, the will to bend and to break.

The room beyond the window is still.

_Have I forgotten something?_

 

There's a break in his coding. Something missing. Something always missing.

The call murmurs through his channel. If he focuses his attention on that strand of digital interference, its humming intensifies like the distant thrumming of engines, reminding him of a past that will never be his own. Fragmented. And as exhaustion sets in again he hears the voice over the intercom. Finally he stirs. He connects with the beta waves, downloading them and processing them a hundred times faster than the human brain can fire, and he answers the call.

_Remember what they told you._

_"Command, come in! This is Oracle Outpost Blue Base."_

_Alpha?  Is that you, man? There's no way..._

_Don't you know you're in danger?_

"This is Vic," he responds, just as they told him to. He wouldn't want to make them angry. "I read you loud and clear Blue team, my azure amigos."

_"We need you to send us something special. We're making an assault on Red base."_

It's been a while since anyone from Oracle has called him. One hundred and twelve days, eleven hours, fifteen minutes, three four five seconds... "Right-o. What's your request-o?"

_"If I sent you a request for some arsenal weapons, will you drop us a crate in a few hours?"_

"I'll see what I can do. Shoot it on up."

_"Thanks, Vic!"_

The channel disconnects. In a few minutes he'll receive a file for weapons they don't keep on simulation outposts, far beyond the demand of the budget, and the Counsellor will answer. Maybe someone representing the Director will answer.  After all, nothing is too high a cost for the Alpha. No sacrifice too great.

 _Have I sacrificed my memories?_ he wonders, slowly drifting back into hibernation.

 _"You are Kappa,"_ they told him. In the beginning. As if there had been more sitting on the tip of their tongues.  _"And today is your birthday."_

    

     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all the support so far!


	7. Another Day We Waste Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaaack.
> 
> Tex is tired of Blue team's bitching, South is tired of Red team's incompetency, and everyone is honestly just tired.

 

“We should get the drop within the week,” Church tells his team as he returns from the control room. He had put in several additional requests for tank parts and rifle ammunition after Wash informed them of the dwindling stock. “It’s amazing what you guys can order all the way out here.”

The group is gathered in the foyer when he turns the corner.

Tucker scoffs. “Okay, but will it actually help us beat the reds? It seems like they stand a chance again with that new Freelancer hire.”

“You literally have two Freelancers on your side now.”

“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Wash interjects. “So you blues have _one_ Freelancer, and an amnesiac.”

Church and Tex glare at him, but he’s unfazed.

“You can’t do anything about it?” Tucker asks next, insistently. “Sorry, but we spent a long time getting our asses kicked before you guys showed up! If you don’t help us now, I’m just gonna go watch TV and call it a day.”

“You know what?” Tex says, clearly at her wit’s end with all the complaining. “You guys want to fight the reds and win for once? Fine. Then I suggest we start some real training.”

“Training?” the group echoes.

“Fuck that,” Tucker replies.

_“Church.”_

He glances at Tex, and then returns his attention to the group. “Oh, right. As designated captain of blue team, I’m ordering you to follow Tex’s command throughout the remainder of this training course. Which starts now, I guess.”

Tucker nearly screams. “Goddammit I knew I was going to regret letting you be captain!”

“No take-backs.”

“God _dammit_!”

“Please don’t take my back.”

Church sighs. “I’m not taking your back, Caboose.”

“Oh, okay…because I need it to stand.”

“And we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way,” Tex continues, much to the exasperation of her team. “Armor off and pants on people, I want you out by the tank in an hour!”

“We’re going to die,” Tucker mutters, watching Tex move first into the heart of the base.

Caboose perks up and follows her. “I love bonding exercises! _And_ I love pants!”

“Please,” Kai shoots back, “no pants are where it’s at.”

“Bow chika bow wow~”

Wash shrugs at Church and proceeds to head out of the base. He’s never wanted to invest himself in the antics of the simulation soldiers, and quite frankly, at least at this point, doesn’t want to get involved in what will probably get him killed by complete and total accident.

Tucker, still lingering, approaches their team captain. “Church, man, listen. We need to talk.”

“I don’t do emotional so keep it brief.”

“You said we’re just simulation soldiers, right?”

“Well,” Church responds hesitantly, “you were. Now you’re simulation soldiers experiencing the drama of Freelancers. Don’t feel too bad, lots of soldiers get dropped into scenarios like this for the progress of the military. If _progress_ is the word you want to use.”

Tucker looks to the floor for a moment. “Do we have a choice in this? I don’t think I like the idea of getting involved with something this insane.”

There’s a prolonged silence between them. Church adjusts his grip on his sniper rifle. “You do have a choice, Tucker. Trust me, we’re not involving you – we’d be better off keeping you as far out of it as possible.” He reluctantly reaches out and give Tucker a reassuring pat on the shoulder. It’s more awkward than it is affirming. “But we are going to help you out with what you need, as long as you keep out of our way while we handle the aftermath of our terrible job occupation.”

“Thought you said you weren’t a Freelancer?”

“I’m not.”

“Be honest, what the hell are you then?”

“I don’t know,” Church says finally, honestly. “I really don’t fucking know. Hit my head pretty hard, I think, although Tex insists that my job occupation was something like project coordinator.”

Tucker gives him a sideways look. “You sure as hell don’t shoot like a nerd.”

“I’ve had lots of practice.”

“Okay. Uh…that’s, that’s pretty much all I wanted to ask.” Tucker begins his trek towards the other end of the base when he pauses, turn to Church and says, “One other thing. Tex mentioned something about those AIs being paired with Freelancers, right? Like how she’s got that thing called Omega?”

“What about it?”

“Why is that Delta AI not paired?”

Delta, previously uploaded into their base’s mainframe to help speed up the repairs, projects himself over Church’s shoulder _. “I was paired with the Freelancer Operative agent New York prior to his death. I was last integrated with agent South Dakota, but Church uninstalled me.”_

“So you won’t give Delta to anyone?” Tucker inquires.

“Of-fucking-course not.”

“Cause they’ll die or some shit?”

Church rolls his eyes. “Because Delta is worth more than you can possibly comprehend, so I’m not transferring him to a simulation trooper. Now go get changed, dude. That’s an order.”

Tucker doesn’t thank him, or whatever. If he’s bothered by Church's blunt remarks, he doesn’t seem interested in fighting back. Instead he pads off down the corridor and disappears in the shadows of the base. Church shakes his head.

 _“You can always pair with me,”_ Delta informs him.

“Not interested in having an extra voice in my head. Just…keep doing what you’re doing.”

Delta watches Church go.

 _“Okay,”_ he utters, flickering out. _“As you wish.”_

    

   

   

    

Wash finds South at the peak of a ridge overlooking the mesa. He doesn’t set out with the intentions of interacting with her but there she is against the backdrop of forest and mountain, basking in the sunlight as if she’s got nothing better to do.

The problem with South, and like most Freelancers, is that she will only fight the people she sees as a threat. She can gauge her own abilities and size up her opponent’s with a calculated ease. She’s always been about precision, self-preservation, and necessity. So, at least from what Wash can understand, South is bored out of her mind, having to live with the most disarming group of people they’ve ever had to _not_ kill.

Wash almost doesn’t recognize her in the new color and upgraded Stalker-class armor, the magenta hue covering every band of pale pink and green she had originally adorned. He only thinks of how strange she looks without a style that resonates with coordination to North. But, quite tragically, coordination is nothing without the other party.

“South?” Wash address coolly, trekking up to her position on the ridge. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Taking a break,” she replies, his voice edged like glass.

“It’s been like, three days. Worn out already?”

“Honestly, I’m just taking a well-deserved breather. Living with a bunch of gorillas who have the collective IQ of a _brick_ is starting to stress me the fuck out.” She clutches her shotgun with a grip too tight, too wound up. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill them yet.”

Wash turns his gaze to red base. “So what’s it like on their team, aside from the obvious stupidity and questionable system of ethics?”

“Makes me wish I had let the Meta kill me.”

“…Oh. By the way, that color does _not_ look good on you.”

“It’s to help me blend in, okay?”

“I’m sure.”

They go quiet. He can only imagine what must be blitzing through her mind. When Carolina had two AIs for a few days she had a complete and utter mental breakdown. Wash had Epsilon for five whole seconds before abruptly crumbling under the stress of the transfer. But South had lived on the run with two AIs and she had managed to survive for _months_.

(When the thoughts aren’t your own, what do you think about?)

South huffs. “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?”

“As in, how did we let everything fall apart so quickly and how could all of the surviving Freelancers make it to the same place at the same time with the same goals? Or as in, do you think there’s an alternate reality in which I’m dead and maybe you’re having this conversation with North instead. Or maybe in another reality we’re both dead, or you’re dead and North’s alive and I’m having this conversation with him, or you’re both dead and in some odd twist of events I end up teaming with the Meta-”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” she says quickly, “I was talking about up here, on this rock. It’s not a very convenient spot to get to.”

“…Oh, right. You were up here first, so I dropped in.”

“Not that I care any, but do you want to talk about it?”

He pauses. “No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m good.”

 _“South!”_ Sarge calls from below them, having spotted the Freelancers interacting on the ridge with what South has come to title his Convenient Sarge Senses.

She rolls her eyes. Theta is giggling. “Ugh. Yes, Sarge?”

“Stop playing footsie with the enemy! We’ve got a war to win! Now either shoot him or help me fix the warthog! In fact, forget the warthog, just shoot him!”

“You think there’s some version of reality where you shot me?” Wash muses.

“Do you really want to find out?”

“I doubt it would happen.” He pushes his elbow against hers. “You’re…honestly one of the few Freelancers I ever trusted.”

South gives him a sidelong look, almost offended. “Do yourself a favor and don’t trust me, Wash. People I trust – people I get close to – just end up _dying_.”

Wash has a feeling he’s put two and two together. “So you and York were more than just-?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

South traverses the slope down and joins her captain below. She casts Wash a glare before following Sarge over the hill to the red base, leaving the Freelancer in gray to the sound of the wind. He could follow them and get some answers out of her if he was persistent enough, if he _really_ wanted to know the truth about York, or if he simply wished to bring her a miniscule amount of comfort.

Wash returns to Blue Base all the same.

    

   

   

   

Tex works her team like they’ve never been through military camp in their life. And in defense of Kai, who claims she snuck onboard a ship and is not _actually_ a legal soldier, laps around the canyon is an exercise routine that’s hard on the knees.

Tex jogs ahead of them with a whistle in her mouth, blowing a sound off each time they cross the mile marker (roughly, from what Church guesses, one lap around the entire mesa). Tucker is the first to nearly collapse, bending over with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Kai makes it a quarter mile further before she comes to a stop and complains about cramps, and Church pulls off another lap before he drops to his knees at their resting spot beneath a tree.

Tex jogs up to them, hands on her hips. “This is only round one, soldiers!”

“Wait,” Tucker says, still winded, “Where’s Caboose?”

They group turns their heads to see that the private has become rather distracted by the strange insects trying to harvest pollen from the plants like bees. Tex blows on her whistle, startling the man, and he bashfully returns to them. “Sorry Scary Lady,” he utters.

“For that,” Tex tells them coyly, “you all get to drop and give me ten.”

“Just ten pushups?” Tucker inquires.

“Ten sets.”

_“Goddammit Caboose!”_

They grumble and complain as they all roll onto their stomachs and begins their agonizing round two task. Tex eventually joins them when she’s satisfied her sadistic workout regime has broken their will just enough to help her sleep easy tonight.

Church collapses on his third set, Kai immediately after him, Caboose on his fifth set and Tucker on his sixth. They glare at Tex as she counts, loudly, all 100.

“Up and at ‘em,” she declares upon immediately planting her feet, “we’re on to task number 3.”

“My arms feel funny and I don’t like it,” Caboose mumbles.

“Tell me about it,” Kai replies. “I used to sleep through most of this stuff in high school!”

Tex blows her whistle. “I gave you an order, cadets! Get your asses moving!”

They do get up, and it’s awful and reluctant. The exasperated, exhausted, and leery Blue team gathers by the base of the rising half-moon cliff in tank tops and camouflage military pants not suited for climbing rocks.

Tex slides on her fingerless gloves normally used as braces during sparring, cracks her knuckles and her neck. “So who likes rock climbing?”

“Literally none of us likes to do anything,” Tucker responds blatantly.

“Good. Follow my league then.”

Tex finds her grip on the wall and hauls herself up, ledge for ledge, finding her footing with relative ease. She’s impressively clearing the expanse of the high rise without a single misstep. Church has a quirk in his eyebrow as he watches her, as if he’s accustomed to her showing off all her raw talent.

“Okay privates,” Church declares, digging his hands into the bedding, “keep the hell up!”

He begins to climb. Caboose makes a declaration of impressing Church and takes the lead, pulling himself upwards and onwards, as Kai scales up after them and Tucker lags beneath, clearly infuriated with this stupid training. They’re tired and their progress is gradual but at least it’s steady.

Although the cliff rises approximately 600m(2,000 ft) there’s a flat around 85ft up, pushing back to form a plateau, before arching back up into the rest of the formation. The waterfall cascades down onto the plateau, following its self-made gorged out river path, tumbling down into the lake below. Or so Church tells himself because he’s uncomfortable with heights and if he tries to think of anything other than the math of calming waterfalls he’ll probably _freak_.

Tex pulls herself up and over onto the plateau. Caboose is only a minute behind her, grinning from ear to ear, having the time of his fucking life. Kai pulls herself up with a helpful push from Church who’s desperately wanting this stupid day to end as much as the rest of them, but it’s not the worst situation he’s ever been in.

(And hopefully Blue team won’t ever have to suffer the way he has.)

He’s thankful when he finally hauls his tired ass up onto a flat surface and dares to reach down and offer Tucker his hand. The blue looks up at him for a moment, as if uncertain, not that Church would ever consider pushing Tucker off the ledge…not right now, at least.

Tucker exhales, grabs onto the gesture and he's assisted up onto the plateau. Tex is already on her feet, padding across the mountain to the edge of the waterfall. The group scoots close to gaze down at their base.

Wash, having returned from his trip, is on the roof waving at them.

“We’re taking a quick breather,” Tex announces. “Then we’ll climb down and-”

“I’m gonna short cut it,” Tucker interjects, rushing for the ledge. “Tucker out!”

He leaps over the edge of the drop off, falling towards the lake below. He impacts the water with a distinctive splash. Kai laughs and follows his lead, jumps into the air with a spin. Caboose looks at Church, who gives him a curt nod, and nearly lands on Tucker on his way down.

Tex shrugs to Church. “Well,” she says, “at least they made it up here without dying. Gotta give this blue team some credit for trying.”

Church sighs. “Tex…”

She brings her attention up to him, her brow furrowed with worry. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

“I was thinking of maybe pairing up with Delta. See what it’s like and all.”

There’s a silence that lingers between them, suddenly, sitting uncomfortably against their shoulders. It seems to happen a lot these days. Church should be used to people going quiet on him when he brings up sensitive topics but he’s not quite sure _what_ makes Delta such a touchy subject. Or, at least, he’s never fully understood why Tex shies away from conversations about the AIs.

She gradually closes the distance between them and takes his hand in hers.

“There’s a lot I still haven’t told you.”

Then she breaks their contact, takes two steps back, and throws herself from the ledge. Almost five seconds later he recognizes the impact of her body against the water.

“Come on Church!” Tucker calls up, barely audible over the waterfall crashing into the lake. “Don’t be a pissbaby!”

Church exhales and leaps from the cliff.

    

   

    

  

“The blues have been training all day! Why can’t _we_ be that efficient?”

“Because Sarge doesn’t have the attention span and I’m too lazy to break into anything faster than a casual stroll, Simmons.”

The soldier in maroon armor is on the roof of the base, spying on the blues with a sniper rifle neither of them has any training using, but the scope is handy all the same. Grif watches the soldiers climbing their own cliff, making damn well sure that Kai doesn’t fall from that height.

“What are you losers doing?” South asks, padding up onto the platform.

“Nothing,” Grif replies.

“I’d like to think we’re doing recon,” Simmons amends. “The Blues have been training all day. If this keeps up, they’ll get the upper hand! And Grif isn’t _nearly_ as concerned as he should be.”

“Course not. The Blues may be in better shape, but that doesn’t change the fact they’re as unproductive as we are.”

South snatches Simmons’ rifle from his hands and sets it against her shoulder, peering into the scope. From this distance, she can see the soldiers out of their armor, pulling themselves up and over onto a plateau above their lake. “Hmph, the fucking idiots are running around in a combat zone without armor on.”

“We could launch an assault right now,” Simmons remarks. “They’d be totally defenseless.”

“We also could have shot them when they ran laps by our base,” Grif says blatantly. “You and I both know that we Reds don’t fight dirty unless absolutely necessary.”

“Since _when_?”

“Since shut up.”

South scoffs. “Or I can go out there myself and pick a few of ‘em off. The girl seems like an easy target, she couldn’t hit a bullseye on a parked tank.”

Grif grabs the nose of the rifle and pushes it down. “You will _not_ be shooting Kai!”

“Uhm? That’s bad?”

“That’s my _sister_! She’s the only blue we’re _not_ trying to kill!”

South rolls her eyes. “Well then I’ll make it painless.”

“Stop it, South, I’m being serious!”

“Jesus, alright. I won’t shoot, I guess.” She scoffs and shoves the rifle back into Simmons’ arms. After another moment she turns to leave. “Unless I get paid to change my mind. Don’t forget that I’m a _Freelancer_ , Grif; you don’t know the worlds of danger you’re dealing with.”           

She disappears into the base.

Grif and Simmons exchange uneasy looks. But neither are very surprised.

   

   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: South, South darling, please stop trying to kill everyone on red team. And the first fragment of Alpha is returned.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed so far! If you liked this work you should check out my other one: Resurgent.
> 
> If you have the time, drop some kudos and let me know what you thought~


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